The Other Donna
by Snowflakes-on-my-eyelashes
Summary: The human doctor, living in a parallel world with Rose is overcome with guilt for what happened to Donna Noble, and when he meets another Donna in this new world, his chance of redemption and peace with himself arises.
1. Chapter 1

_The first time I met her, she saved my life. The last time we met, she saved the universe. But she's gone now. I can never see her again, and she doesn't even remember me. Things were supposed to be alright with her. I wouldn't mess her up, because we were just mates. Best mates. _

_Or rather, they were. The Doctor and Donna. I just have their memories. _

_But I did mess her up. Technically speaking, I messed her up just by coming into being. When she touched the hand, I was created. And she was doomed._

_I told Rose everything we did together, everywhere we went to, and even that crazy hat box she brought with her, but that's all I have of her now – words. She was amazing, and I lost her. It was all my fault._

He entered the ward and headed towards the new patient. "Ah, Doctor," the nurse began, and he grinned, still not over the brilliance that he had chosen the one job that would allow him to keep his name. But as he saw the face of the patient, his smile slid away. It was Donna. Donna, here, in this universe. Donna, lying in a hospital bed. Or at least, a Donna – not his Donna. All the same, the sight of her face so white and expressionless, with closed eyes, sent fear shivering down his spine.

"Car accident," the nurse told him. He shuddered; Donnas in parallel worlds seemed to have more than their fair share of car accidents, he thought, remembering the incident with the fortune teller on the planet Shan Shen, when she met Rose, just before the events that led to the metacrisis.

"She was knocked out but other than a broken arm, she seems alright."

"Thank you," he replied, and he meant it, as relief flooded over him. She was alright. And now he knew she was fine, his grin returned, just from seeing her again, like when he saw Sarah again after all those years. Donna was here.

He was there when she woke, although that wasn't really coincidence.

"Hi," she said, assessing him. He wondered what she saw – a skinny boy in a suit? Certainly not a spaceman.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Brilliant," she replied, sarcastically, in such a typical Donna way that he couldn't hide my smile.

"I've sorted your arm out, so it will be in a cast for several weeks, but you were lucky. A car accident could have been a lot worse. Is there anyone you would like us to phone to tell them what's happened, and maybe to pick you up?"

"Well I've just crashed my Mum's car, so there's no point phoning her."

"What about a grandparent?" At Donna's suspicious expression, he quickly continued, "or maybe a friend, or–"

"No, it's fine," she interrupted. "I'm free to leave now, aren't I?"

Leave. They had only just met. Or re-met... Parallel worlds were so confusing, even for a timelord brain.

"Yeah. 'Course. See you around, Donna Noble."

"Yeah. Thanks." And just as she was about to leave, she added, "Oi, skinny boy. What's your name?"

"I'm the Doctor," he said, on default.

"Yeah, I got that. But what's your name, you Dumbo – Doctor Who?" She was using that voice, as if he was as thick as a tree trunk, and he loved it.

"Well, John Smith, but... call me the Doctor. Everyone does."

"Right," she said. "Bye then... Doctor." She paused slightly mockingly before that word, to show how odd a name she thought it was, but she smiled before she turned and left.

And she was gone, as quickly as she had come.

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><p>So there it is, the first chapter of my story about the human doctor and a parallel Donna. Please please review :)<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

_Seeing Donna again just makes the pain worse. Makes the memories more vivid._

_I knew what must have happened to Donna after the parallel worlds closed off from each other; I knew the Doctor – the other Doctor – would erase her memories. It was that or let her die. And Donna would have understood it all exactly, just before he took it all away again. All the newly-acquired Time Lord knowledge, all the recently-discovered human self-confidence. All her best and worst experiences. Almost all of what mattered to her most. _

_I wonder what it would have been like, to do that to your best friend. I don't know who was worse off: me or him. He had to wipe her mind, and I didn't get to say goodbye._

_Between the two of us, there are three hearts to ache._

He recounted this meeting to Rose that night, who was rather amused by his repeated exclamations that she was "so Donna", and soon after, he began to find out as much as he could about this Donna. "She even lives in the same house!" he told Rose, one day when he got back from work an hour late, having taken a detour through Chiswick. "She works as a temp, just like my Donna did, and she lives with her mother and grandfather in Chiswick!"

"So what did you say to her?" Rose asked, handing him a cup of tea and snuggling up to him.

"Well..." he said slowly in that way of his, running a hand through his amazing hair. "I..."

"You didn't, did you," she realised. "Oh my God, you didn't say a word to her!"

"Well not exactly, but –"

His pathetic excuse was drowned out by her laughter, and after a few seconds, realising neither his look of indignant embarrassment or his cry of "Mrs Smith!" were doing anything, he saw no choice but to pick her up a carry her off to bed, still laughing.

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><p>This is short, I know, the chapters are going to be pretty uneven, but i've already written the next and I will upload it soon.<p>

Please please please review!


	3. Chapter 3

_I miss her._

After months of frequenting the road on which Donna's house was situated, the Doctor began to get involved in her life, still without her knowing of it, through things as small as boxes of chocolates through the door, to larger things like job opportunities, and once he even managed to anonymously mend Wilf's telescope.

Eventually, he cracked, and had to see her again, but he still couldn't brave her house, in case he met Sylvia Noble. Rose did not understand this phobia. Other than not owning a webcam, she had seemed fine for the brief time Rose had met her, but she supposed having a girl with a ginormous gun in her house at the same time as a fleet of invading Daleks that moved the Earth to a different part of space so they could destroy the universe might have helped to subdue her somewhat.

The Doctor was contemplating how to meet Donna somewhere other than her house when he bumped into her again – literally – in a coffee shop.

"Oi, watch it!" she said, as he nearly knocked her coffee over her. "Oh, it's you – Doctor Frankenstein," and he was pleased to see her smile slightly.

"Just 'the Doctor'," he told her.

"Right. But seriously, you need a better nickname. How long have people called you the Doctor?"

"A while," he replied, cryptically. "So how's your arm?"

"Fine, the cast is off and everything."

"And how did your mother take the loss of her car?"

"Not well," Donna muttered darkly, and he needed no elaboration to imagine it. "Anyway, gotta go, but we should see each other again, yeah?" She was already backing towards the exit. "Bye, stick insect."

What was it with Donnas and nicknames? Spaceman, skinny boy, now stick insect?

Somehow, that was all it took for friendship to start. It was like they needed each other after being so closely linked by the metacrisis. They saw each other again soon after, mainly to do with the fact that the Doctor began to haunt the coffee shop in the hope of meeting her, and they got into the habit of regularly meeting up. She came to the Doctor and Rose's countless times, the Doctor and Donna bickering for much of the time, and at last, after trying so hard to put it off, the day came when the Doctor visited her house.

"Why are the mothers always so scary?" he complained to Rose afterwards. "I mean, yours kissed me, Martha's slapped me, and Donna's... well, she's terrifying."


	4. Chapter 4

_I didn't know if Rose would be jealous, but she's amazing. She understands completely, how me and Donna need each other, but aren't in love at all – just best mates. I think the way we tease each other all the time, and how Donna calls me stick insect was enough to show Rose that she is the only one for me, and that there's no attraction between Donna and I, just strong friendship. _

_But I can't help thinking, there's still another Donna out there – my Donna – who is missing the doctor so much, without realising it. A Donna who is so sad, but can't remember why._

Spending so much time with the Doctor, it was inevitable that at some point, Donna would end up face to face with an alien. There came the day when she walked into the Doctor and Rose's house to find the Doctor grappling with a huge, livid creature with bright orange scales and five legs, and was secreting a pulsing slime over the carpet.

Rose ran in and smothered it in a double bed sheet, giving the Doctor enough time to programme the alien's home planet co-ordinates into a transmat device, and it vanished.

The two of them stood there panting, and Donna just stood there and stared at them.

After a good thirty seconds, she gained enough composure to demand, "What the HELL was that?"

The Doctor and Rose exchanged guilty glances like a pair of children caught being naughty by an angry school teacher.

"I'll clean up the mess," Rose volunteered, leaving the Doctor with the harder job of dealing with Donna.

Donna folded her arms, and glared at the Doctor.

"Well?" she said.

"That was a Quinteptil, from the planet Makka, in the Pinwheel Galaxy," he explained, for want of anything else to say.

"An alien." said Donna.

The Doctor nodded.

"An ALIEN from SPACE?"

The Doctor nodded.

"An alien from space in LONDON?"

The Doctor nodded.

"And all you can do is NOD? Stop nodding!"

Looking even more like a naughty school boy, the Doctor stopped nodding.

Donna sat down heavily in an armchair.

"Aliens," she repeated, rubbing her temples.

"So, you believe me?" the Doctor asked, sitting down too.

Donna considered. "A few years ago, I would have said no straight away, but after the stars started disappearing, and before that all those robot things converting people..." her voice caught.

"Who was it?" he asked. "Who did you know who died?"

"My Dad. Geoffrey Noble. One day he went to work and never came back. Mum cried for a month, I think." And she turned away from him so he wouldn't see her tears.

Her tears pierced the Doctor's heart, and having only one didn't make it any less painful.

"I'm so sorry," he told her, for more things than her father's death.

She sniffed.

"Yeah, well," she said, "it wasn't your fault, was it?"

Only it was. Not her father's death, but the rest of it. Only, he was talking to the wrong Donna.

"What about if I told you there were parallel dimensions? Do you believe in other worlds?"

"I dunno," she admitted, after some thought. "Why on earth are you asking me th –"

"Would you believe me if I said we had met, in another universe?"

Dumfounded silence.

"Those robots, the Cybermen, after a while they all just suddenly disappeared, didn't they? They went to my universe."

Donna just stared at him.

"Donna Noble, temp from Chiswick, astronomer Grandfather, terrifying mother, lover of hats, equipped for every occasion, ginger, impossible in the mornings before you've had any caffeine, supporter of West Ham United, you hate your middle name, Eileen, after your grandmother, and when you were five, you fell off a ladder and broke your arm. Only you refused to tell me why you were up a ladder..."

Her mouth opened slightly.

"We were best friends."

Donna just looked at him.

"Whoa. Have I just made Donna speechless?"

"OK. You know what, I think you're bonkers, I don't have a clue what you mean by parallel universes, and you're starting to sound like a stalker, but for some reason, I believe you. Your face, I just can't not trust it."

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><p>Yay some aliens at last - I had to get some in here :D<p>

please reviewwwwwwwww!


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